As soon as we hear the term analytics the first things that strike our mind apart from Data Analytics, Marketing Analytics, Business Analytics, etc. is ‘Google Analytics’, a tool that has evolved as a loyal companion of millions of businesses and helped them in understanding the preferences of the customers and developing better Customer Experience.
Recently, on 14th October 2020, Google introduced updated Google Analytics also dubbed as Google Analytics 4, with powerful new features. The new version of Google Analytics has Machine Learning (ML) at its core with an aim to provide new ways to monitor and track key data trends, and alert marketers and business owners to new opportunities. Its new property type includes
- Expanded predictive insights
- Cross-device measurement capabilities
- Deeper integration with Google Ads
- Improved granular data controls
Wednesday’s announcement is an expansion and rebranding of the last year launched App + Web property and marks the first major step in evolving beyond Universal Analytics.
All the new features of Google Analytics are designed to improve marketing decisions and obtain better ROI. Let’s have a closer look at the key features of new Google Analytics to get a closer view:
- Smarter Insights
By applying advanced Machine learning models of Google, the new analytics now automatically alerts marketers about the important trends in their data, such as a product seeing an increase in demand due to the new needs of the customers. It also helps in understanding the possible future actions of the customers. Google is still in the process of adding new predictive metrics to the update.
How will it help marketers?
- New capabilities will help marketers in being proactive and also reactive by predicting the future actions of the customers.
- It will also help marketers in concentrating on the higher-value audience.
- By combining these new insights with other features, marketers can draft a better picture of how users arrive at their site and how they interact.
Customer-Centric Measurements
Instead of measurements fragmented by a device or platform, the new Google Analytics provides customer-centric measurements. It utilizes numerous identity spaces, including marketer-provided User IDs and unique Google signals from users that opt into ads personalization, to offer a more complete view of how customers are interacting with your business. Google Analytics now also measures interactions across the webs and apps, which means it will also report conversions such as YouTube engaged views that occur via the web or in-app.
How will it help marketers?
- It will help marketers in understanding the complete customer lifecycle of their customers.
- It will enable marketers in learning about the changing needs of the customers, which is very crucial
- Marketers will now have a more holistic view of the Analytics report with the ability to see conversions from YouTube, Google Search, Social media, emails, and Google and non-Google paid channels.
New Approach to Data Control
New Analytics offers more granular data control for marketers. Updated approach to data control, marketers manage how to gather, retain, and use their analytics data. It also helps in responding to the rising expectations of the customer, regulatory development, and changing standards of technology for customer expectations. These controls can also be used to specify the ways in which data should be used for advertising. It also involves options to help advertisers with data regulations such as CCPA and GDPR.
Capabilities of deleting Data are also improved, allowing businesses to comply with deletion requests from users without having to remove more data than necessary.
How will it help marketers?
- Marketers can select when to use particular customer data to optimize ads, and when to limit data utilization to measurements only.
- Marketers also have control over sharing their activity with Google Analytics.
Preparing for the Future
The new Google Analytics is developed to adapt to a future with or without identifiers or cookies. With this update, Google is trying to futureproof Google Analytics with an eye toward stricter data privacy laws such as GDPR and CCPA.
It utilizes a flexible approach to measurement, and in the future, it will include modeling and machine learning to fill the gaps where the data might be incomplete. This means that the marketers can rely on Google Analytics to measure their marketing results and meet the requirements of the customers now as we face uncertainty in the future.
In order to start using New Google Analytics with future improvements, Google advises creating a new Google Analytics 4 property alongside the existing properties.
How will it help marketers?
- New Google analytics has evolved as a ray of hope for the marketers and advertisers who were worried about the cookieless future.
- With data collection tools of Google capable of attributing activities without the use of cookie tracking, while still providing accurate, valuable insight, could end up being a key tool in future-proofing marketing strategies.
- Marketers can use Google Analytics to measure their marketing results and also help in meeting the needs of their customers.
Rounding Up
Analytics as a whole is playing a very significant role in drafting a marketing strategy and delivering an excellent customer experience by covering all the touchpoints of the customer journey.
Marketing analytics is being considered as the key to successful marketing campaigns, as it helps marketers in making marketing as well as business decisions in a more informed manner. So, any powerful innovation in analytics is momentous and will empower marketers for years to come.
Originally posted by Chandrima Samanta
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